THE PRODUCTION STORY OF THE ULTRA LIGHT BLADE

 

In other industries when seeking lightweight and strong products the manufacturing goal is optimal wet out of carbon fibre cloth and the all important cloth: resin ratio. It is a fine balance between wetting fibres out enough to give optimal strength characteristics and having excess resin that is surplus to requirement adding weight.  Paddle construction methods commonly used leave excess resin in the part. By totally changing our production method to one used in other performance based industries, we have been able to achieve this optimal wet out and cloth:resin ratio. The results of the change were 40-50grams per blade (20% reduction) in weight.  This is a huge change in the feel of a paddle. 

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We continued on our mission for performance and began to look into different surface finishes to see how they effected water feel. Historically there has been a few high performance paddlers who have sanded the surface of their blade to get better water feel.  We explored this concept some more and researched the theory. We tried a rough surface on the back of the blade initially, and we also tried changes to the inside of the blade.  After testing for months, we totally changed our design to gain a rough/raw carbon inside surface finish.

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Our final step was to make sure we had not made any compromise in the strength of the blades. We added more carbon fibre in to the areas of greatest force and extra protection in the lip, tips of the blades and neck area.

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 The combination of ultra light blades, surface finish, weight reduction and strength gave us the feel and sensory feedback we have been striving for.

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 The combination of the weight reduction and blade surface feel amazing and this paddle lay-up outperforms even our own expectations on the water. We hope you love it as much as we do!

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